All American Dream Dolls (Harvest Book)

At the beginning of this madcap novel from David Haynes, named one of America's Best Young Novelists by Granta in 1996, Deneen Wilkerson is on vacation with her boyfriend, Calvin. While driving to Door County, Wis., Calvin announces that he thinks they ought to break up. Too stunned to protest, Deneen says nothing, and they continue on what was supposed to have been a romantic week away. Driving back to Minnesota, Deneen asks Calvin to drop her off at the airport, where she buys a ticket home to her mother in St. Louis. Once home she settles into a routine of watching TV and eating junk food. When her stepsister Ciara enters the All American Dream Dolls beauty pageant, Deneen is drawn from her basement lair to help Ciara and her tutor, a fey hairdresser named Hawkins. The novel is told in a first person voice that's a combination of Terry McMillan (with less profanity) and Groucho Marx.